Behavioural Modification
by Jane99
Summary: They can't stand it any more. Something has to be done.


I

Puck couldn't stand it any longer. Her needy moping was fucking pitiful. He was embarrassed for her. "Go Your Own Way" his fine arse. More like "Go Your Own Way, Over Her Dead Body And Back To Me!" over and over again , like some demented squeaky record. He didn't understand it. She was a Hot Jew, like him, and _he_ had some fucking self-respect.

If Rachel didn't watch out, she was going to waste her entire life pining after Finn. And Finn might be his friend, but Puck wasn't going to let that shit slide. Rachel believed in him when others didn't, and she'd never let on to his mother about his slushy fetish, and that straight-up deserved rewarding.

He tried talking to her, tried building her confidence. Tried to manoeuvre her crazy ass into another direction. None of it worked. It was time to bring out the big guns.

Rachel Berry was going to grow a backbone if it killed him.

And he knew just the person to help him do it.

II

Kurt couldn't stand it any longer. The waffling, the angst. There wasn't enough soundproofing in Lima to drown out his stepbrother arguing with Quinn about the attention he paid to Rachel Berry. It had been going on for months now. _Months_. Finn's desperate need to be popular had reignited his relationship with Quinn, and while Kurt acknowledged that she wasn't _quite_ as awful as she had been, that simply wasn't a sufficient basis for a relationship.

Finn was painfully slow. It was a fact of life and Kurt tried not to make him feel bad about it, but enough was enough. Finn was family. He was Kurt's responsibility now, and if his brother didn't have the brains to end this sordid, boring triangle (and Kurt couldn't understand how something could be both sordid _and_ boring, but Finn had managed it), then Kurt would do it for him.

Finn Hudson was going to grow a backbone if it killed him.

And he knew just the person to help him do it.

III

Santana owed him one. Puck wouldn't go checking out girls in the mall with every ex, but Santana was like his eviller twin and when the chips were down, there wasn't anything he wouldn't fucking do for her. Unfortunately, that was literally true. They'd found this hot girl and Puck _hadn't_ fucking done her so Santana could get her mack on. He'd stepped back, accepted their rejection of a threesome with good grace. That shit was _painful_, and she owed him one.

He'd just known that somewhere in the back of her wardrobe Santana would have a shock collar.

What he hadn't known was just how hot it would be to pin Berry to the floor while they fitted it round her neck. Still, he tried to be gentle. "It's for your own good, Rach."

"Stop your squirming, Dwarf," Santana snapped. "It's not like I give a shit, but it seriously makes me sick to look at you. Your neediness is turning my stomach."

They scrambled off her, and Puck winced in sympathy as Santana thumbed the switch and Rachel jolted and squealed. The look on Santana's face was nearly orgasmic, and she smacked him when he tried to take it off her.

"Don't go soft on me now, Puckerman," she said. "This was your idea, after all. Listen-up, Manhands. You're going to start acting like a grown-ass woman instead of a spoilt toddler, and you're going to start doing it now. When you backslide, my little friend and I will make you wish you hadn't."

"You can live without Finn." _Zap_.

"You can be happy without Finn." _Zap_.

"You will not sing him any more creepy songs." _Zap_.

"You will not stare at him like a starving Disney bitch." _Zap_.

"You will not behave like a desperate, love-starved freak. I don't care if that's exactly what you are. Learn to hide it." _Zap._

"You will start exhibiting some self-respect." _Zap._

"You will Stand. Up. For. Yourself." _Zap. Zap. Zap._

Puck wrestled the controls off Santana. She was getting a little too trigger-happy. "I know it sucks, Rach," he said. "But everything will be fine. You'll see."

And because she was looking up at him with big wet doe-eyes, as if he was the good cop who would save her from Satan, he just had to _zap_ her. United front, bitches.

IV

There was a reason Mercedes was his best friend. Anyone who could load and shoot an elephant gun (only with tranquilisers, mind – Kurt wasn't cut out for jail) that quickly and accurately was worth her weight in gold.

It had to be an elephant gun. Finn was gargantuan, and a normal dose of tranks would just make him a little dopier than normal. (Kurt would have had to tie his shoes for him, and those sneakers _stank_ of teenage boy, and not in a good way, _and_ his Dior HazMat suit had yet to arrive. UPS was seriously useless.) They'd practiced on dummies, and Mercedes could tag one in the ass at a hundred feet.

Cornering Finn in his room is seriously less difficult.

"It's for your own good, Finn", Kurt had said to him, as gently as possible. "You're just a little too worried about being popular."

"It's sad and pathetic," said Mercedes, more robustly. "Watching you is like watching a Labrador puppy who's always peeing inside the house and never learns to go outside. It's really awful. Popularity isn't everything, and it seems you learn this lesson every week but it never, ever sticks. Your brain must be made of Teflon."

"You're going to learn now," Kurt added.

"Damn straight. So let this be a lesson to you. You're going to stop dating Quinn. You're going to stop dating _anyone_. Until you can learn to stand up for yourself, it's seriously unfair to the human race to let you back in the dating pool. And by _anyone_, we also mean Rachel. I know sometimes she doesn't seem quite human, but that doesn't mean you get to keep screwing with her because you can't make up your mind."

"There will be no wistful glances, no half-smiles. You will not sing _to_ her. You will not sing _with_ her."

"You will not encourage her in any way."

"You _may_ stand up for her, if necessary, just as you may stand up for anyone being treated badly. And when we say "may", we mean you will _do_ it. We dislike playing on your desperate need to be liked, but please try and remember that no-one will like you if all they see is you sprawled face down in the school corridor, with froth coming out of your mouth and a dart in your ass."

Finn edged towards the door with a face like a stunned mullet. Wearily, Kurt sighed.

"Mercedes, I don't think he believes us. Perhaps a little demonstration?"

Raising the gun to her shoulders, Mercedes grinned evilly. When he was down Kurt made sure to record the image on his cell-phone, so that Finn could see _exactly_ what he looked like.

It was horrible. _Horrible._

V

It was a painful few weeks for two of McKinley High's finest, but the atmosphere in the choir room had undergone a steady improvement. Kurt and Mercedes practically beamed with pride (public service for the win!), and Puck and Santana were seriously considering ditching college to open up a behavioural modification centre.

Of course, there was backsliding, but they had their successes. Rachel was giving as good as she got to anyone who bitched at her ("Turning the other cheek is for people who want to get slapped twice, Dwarf") and Finn sheepishly admitted to his brother that getting a black eye from stopping Azimio slushying the AV club was infinitely preferable to being stabbed in the ass again. He could barely sit as it was.

Their greatest collective success was the day Finn stopped Rachel being slushied. "Not cool, dude," he was heard to say to Karofsky. "Slushying a girl? Can you seriously get any more pathetic? Why not try picking on someone your own size?" Then, forsaking his own advice (Mercedes and Kurt could fix the behaviour but not the brain) he had laid Karofsky out with a solid punch. Gotten himself suspended, but Carole and Burt were proud of him anyway.

Rachel had been starry-eyed, and Santana and Puck made sure to yank her into an empty classroom before she disgraced herself.

"I should bake him some of my famous Thank-You cookies!" she breathed. _Zap._

"Maybe sing him a song to show my gratitude?" _Zap. Zap._

"You're being so unfair! Singing a "thank-you" song isn't the same as singing an "I love you song"." _Zap. Zap. Zap._

It's still a reason to fawn on him, Rach," said Puck. "And do you really think he needs a big thank-you production?"

"He saved me!"

"Please. He only did what any decent human being would have done," said Santana. "You don't thank someone for not being a tool. Not in the way that you'd like to thank him, anyway." And she _zapped_ again for good measure.

"Manners, S," Puck said. "They're not always a bad thing."

And so Rachel was permitted to thank Finn briefly and without drama. No soppy glances, no lingering touches. "Thank and walk" Puck termed it. In return, Finn commented that he would have done it for anyone. He actually meant it, too. Popularity was one thing, but it wasn't better than simple _decency_.

VI

Six months later, the gun and shock collar were officially retired. Mercedes had had no excuse to drop Finn in the corridor for a whole six weeks, and even Santana was getting bored with _zapping_ Rachel when she didn't deserve it.

Against all odds, they had turned into functioning human beings. Puck and Kurt suspected that one day Finn would ask Rachel on a date, but that was okay. She wasn't waiting around for it, and they both seemed genuinely happy for the other when they dated – briefly – other people.

They were friends, and that was important. And for now, that was enough. It wouldn't always be enough, but Puck, Kurt, Santana and Mercedes were convinced that when Finchel next reared its head, it would at least be tolerable for all concerned.

They counted that as a win.


End file.
